With South Hadley High School preparing for a new principal and the School Committee moving forward with several new members, former South Hadley School Committee Chairman Ed Boisselle says he is still not convinced that Phoebe Prince or her family sought help from the school because of continuous bullying from South Hadley students.

Boisselle said South Hadley High School Principal Dan Smith had learned of two or three bullying incidents in the two weeks prior to Prince's death.

"What we still hear from officials, was that Phoebe was harassed for months. I’ve seen no evidence and the DA is not sharing anything with us."

Boisselle's recent comments came during a wide-ranging interview Tuesday with University of Massachusetts investigative journalism students examining South Hadley and the aftermath of Prince's suicide. His comments came one day before reports began surfacing that five of the six students charged in connection with Prince's bullying had negotiated plea deals.

“The fact of the matter is, according to Dan Smith's report, the incidents of harassment happened a couple weeks before [her death], Phoebe didn't tell her parents, and she didn't come to anyone at the school,” Boisselle said.

Although Boisselle said that bullying could have been a factor in Prince's death, he said that he could not say for certain whether there could be other possible factors as well.

"Do I think in the few weeks prior to her tragic death, did kids treat her in a way that was very harassing that would constitute as bullying? Absolutely. She wasn’t beat up but she certainly was harassed and no one should have to take that kind of harassment," said Boisselle.

"That is something that nobody should have to put up with but unfortunately that kind of harassment still occurs every day, in every high school and more than likely every middle school throughout this country."

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Former Northwestern district attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel stated at a press conference last year that her investigation found that students began bullying Prince in September and that both staff and administrators were aware of the problem long before Jan. 7, the day South Hadley Superintendent Gus Sayer said Smith was first made aware of the fact that Prince was being bullied.

Scheibel also said that Prince's mother had approached school officials in regard to the bullying her daughter was facing at the high school.

Boisselle touched upon a number of issues Tuesday, including the behavior the media and The Boston Globe's Kevin Cullen and the behavior of a number of activists in town, including Darby O'Brien and Luke Gelinas. And, he repeatedly defended the actions of Smith as well as Sayer.

"The media create the news, they don’t report it," said Boisselle. "There’s really no facts that I’ve found as Chairman of the School Committee that they (Smith and Sayer) did anything wrong."

Boisselle said that the media was to blame for creating the story that Prince had been bullied to death. He said that because of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), South Hadley administrators were prevented from revealing information about students, which gave the media leeway to create their own take on events.

Boisselle said that his own knowledge of the school's internal investigation was also extremely limited by FERPA . “All I could do was ask, 'Has this been handled appropriately?' and [Sayer] said yes,” said Boiselle.

As the South Hadley School District worked to move forward after Prince's death, Boisselle said that he hoped that the media coverage would increase students' awareness of the hurtfulness of bullying.

“Well, I think regardless of the reason why Phoebe decided to take her life, the lesson from all of this is somebody’s comments, somebody’s actions can really create a very hurtful and very bad situation,” said Boisselle. “And I think not only in South Hadley but in Springfield, in Western Mass. and in the state that it makes people think, I think all of the kids are a little bit more respectful.”